Posts Tagged ‘Twitter’

The 5 ‘Be-Attitudes’ of Twitter

3 Comments
Posted 01 Feb 2010 — by admin
Category Faith, Technology, social networking
Started following @ScottWilliams a twit like myself who caught my attention with some like minded thinking. Anyway he Tweeted about ‘The 5 Be-Attitudes of Twitter’ and I’d thought I share his thoughts here on - Left Over GREY MATTER.

Below are 5 Be-Attitudes that will @ScottWilliams suggests will help Tweeps have a positive and effective Twitter experience.

The 5 “Be-Attitudes” of Twitter
Be Real- Be yourself, don’t try to act like some fake guru, internet expert, coach or millionaire.  You can simply talk about your day, share links, talk about your family, your whereabouts, be funny, inspire others, share business deals, tips & tools, be silly, engaged in the dialogue, observe…  Whatever it is, just Be Real. Remember there are 10 Different Types of People on Twitter.  The beauty of Twitter and social media is that you can just be yourself and people can take it or leave it. No Pressure. of Twitter.  “Do You!  It’s A Statement… Not A Question.”
Be Revealed- Share a real picture of yourself as your profile pic and not some weird avatar or some models pic that you swiped off of the Internet.  If you have a catchy, professional, branded logo… they can be used as well.  There are 20 Types of Twitter Profile Pics. and 6 Ways to Make Your Twitter Profile Work… it starts with revealing yourself!
Be Responsive- If someone is @replying or DM’ing you with something that requires a response, take a few moments at some point in your day to respond.  Remember all DM’s and @replies don’t require a response; don’t get caught up in the unnecessary back-and-forth 2-way conversations.
Be Respectful- Don’t use twitter as a vehicle to have arguments, spew expletives, disrespect other Twitterers… and take some of those extra, extra long 2-way conversations to DM.  Only follow those that you want to follow; understand that you can respectfully choose not to follow those that follow you.  Give credit to others, show some RT love.

Be Relevant- Have an understanding of the Twitter culture… In other-words: learn the difference between an @reply and a DM,  learn the processes and the systems, familiarize yourself with some of the 111 Twitter Tools & Apps. Make Twitter relevant to you, your business, your purpose, your vision, your desire, your need…

I think its fair to say that if we all lived by these (never mind the Twitter the world) the world would be a far better place. Then again didn’t someone wise say something like that over 2,000 years ago?

Check out @ScottWilliams blog – Big Is The New Small.

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Why I’m a Kodak Zi6 Fan

3 Comments
Posted 14 Jun 2009 — by admin
Category News, Technology, social networking
kodak-zi6-flip-usb

Kodak Zi6

It’s about two weeks ago I bought the Kodak Zi6 HD with the view of using this little gem of a camera to shoot video for this blog and other areas on the internet.

I was considering the Flip Meno and also I thought about purchasing much more professional devices, but decided the Zi6 was the one for me. After a bit of research I purchased the Zi6 from Argos and immediately unpacked it. The Zi6 is an incredibly well built, solid hunk of technology compared to the plastic Flip or the bulky Vado.

In every way that the Flip feels cheap, the Zi6 feels expensive. It has a gripable rubberised body, compared with the Flip’s smooth plastic shell. It has a little toggle-style joystick for operating the menus, the kind you used to find on cell-phones before the iPhone changed the mobile world. With a few buttons on the right and left of the little toggle-style joystick which allow you to control things like playback.

Anybody who’s been following or interacting with Kodak over Twitter, Facebook, will know they are working hard to put the Kodak moment back into photography and consumer electronics, which they were once the main innovators; and if recent experiences can be anything to go by they are indeed leading the way in connecting with their consumer and innovating once again.

However long before I bought the Zi6 I had entertained a few considerations that determined my final choice (1) Quality (2) Cost (3) Size (4) Longevity and (5) Spec

Quality

When I considered what I intended to use it for, I knew I needed something that would be worth watching yet would not be difficult to share on the net. After all I’m not making movies or television. However it is important I would able to add HD video to my blog posts from events, conferences and other things of interest without any hassle. With the Zi6 importing into iTunes, then editing in iMovie or Final Cut is a snap. Posting from iMovie 09 to MobileMe, Facebook, YouTube is as simple as clicking of a button.

Cost

Since I intend to use the Zi6 for personal use and corporate social media, so I didn’t see the point of paying for the more expensive video camcorders. Yet until the Flip came out there has not been the option of a real handheld, in your pocket camcorder. Certainly nothing with the ease of use and quality to boot  like the Zi6 for this kinda money.

Size

This was a really big consideration to me. Sure I could get a handheld device, but if you wanted to quietly film a speaker or event, you couldn’t really do this as you would draw too much attention to yourself. Plus it meant another bag for storage and carry around with the accessories. With the pocket type camcorder you can just drop it into your pocket and it weights no more than your mobile phone ever did. So if your wear a suit jacket it fits nicely into your inside pocket and no one is thinking here comes the camera man.

Longevity

This was a difficult one as technology does not stay still for long and I for one like the knowledge that better technology is coming along all the time, even if I can’t afford it all. But with pocket cameras there is no way of knowing how fast the next evolution will be available. But with the Flip and Vado having no slot for memory expansion, that was a major draw back for me. While on the other hand the Kodak Zi6 and Zx1 can have a SDHC 32GB card inserted, although to date I have only used a 4GB as it has been more than enough, but the option is there and so I believe Kodak has been given these two products more longevity than the others.

Spec

I have to say I was drawn to the Zi6 over the Zx1 because it looked more like a camera and not a plastic mobile phone. Also I felt there was no real benefit to me in having it weather proof, so why opt to pay more for that and a smaller screen on the Zx1. The Flip Mino and Creative Vado worked out more expensive with no memory expansion, and they both felt bulky and awkward in the hand. Plus Kodak supply both their pocket cameras with rechargable AA batteries and a battery charger in the box. So if your out of power you can pop in two new AA standard batteries and keep shooting, no waiting on a charge.  Everything I needed was supplied except a SDHC card, however  else including all the cables for connecting to the television came in the box.

Final thoughts

Many people have asked me more questions about the video quality than any other aspect of the device. I have to say if your looking for a professional HD 1080i camera then this is not it, nor are the other pocket camcorders. The reason this works for me, is that I wanted to have a pocket HD camcorder that is not a burden to carry around. Shoots good quality, and is easy to work with afterwards for MobileMe, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitvids, Facebook and of course here at Left Over Grey Matter. In my opinion, with the Zi6 from Kodak available from £90 in the UK for a camera that will record at HD60 720i and works smoothly with iTunes on the Mac, this is the camera worth spending your hard earn cash on.

So if my consideration are similar to your own I highly recommend the Zi6 from Kodak. In fact there is little I can say bad about this little device. In my opinion its great value for money and does exactly what it claims to do. You could say like my iPhone I am a fan of the Zi6. In fact the only thing that would be better is if Apple stuck the Zi6 camera into the iPhone and produced the iPhone HD. Then I would bust a nut trying to get my hands on that perfect marriage of a device. Until then I’m very happy to carry my iPhone 3G and Zi6 everywhere I go.

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Twittersphere and Beyond

6 Comments
Posted 16 May 2009 — by admin
Category Creative Team, Marketing, Technology, social networking
Recently I have been taken with the whole idea of micro blogging in the form of Twitter. It’s simply an amazing tool that is such a simple idea, I can’t imagine why it has not been developed long ago. I mean on the surface it’s not the most amazing set-up. You get a one basic profile page, which you can change the colours and background image, along with one link to your desired landing page.

But that is the beauty of Twitter and something that I hope the creators keep as the ethos of the service. Being only able to type 140 characters stops it becoming a blog. Having it link to everything else (Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc) means it’s not like them, it’s something different. In some ways it’s the glue that was missing.

Just this week I was tweeting away about things. Your everyday ramblings that you wonder why anyone would be interested in following, when I struck up a lovely conversation with a woman in California. I was talking about the latest Wacom tablets, nothing that exciting and unbeknown to me this conversation was with a lady called Karen Sperling. For those like me who didn’t know who this lovely woman is, she is the writer of the first four Corel Painter manuals. We got chatting and I realised I was talking to someone very knowledgeable from the comfort of my home, while she was chatting away from her home in beautiful California. Here is someone in normal life I would never usually meet and she was willing to share her thoughts and expertise with me.

I’ve had lots of experiences like this since getting involved with Twitter. I have made very good business contacts, started some great friendships and been able to meet people whom I genuinely have much in common with or a similar interest. All without any false agendas or pre-arranged boundaries, just good old fashion conversations and relationship building in a modern way. That’s why I don’t like these people who want try to sell you how to make a million followers. How can you have a real relationships with a million people you got in contact with through an automated system, that leave people a greeting and then they’re not available ever again.

I’ve used Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, you name it since Social Media got a name and I always liked somethings and didn’t like others about all of them. What really bothered me and continues today is that you’re repeating your content over and over again, because you have friends connected to different offerings from different companies. And after all let’s not forget that there is a war going on between these organisations. Yes a war! I only have to think of the early days of search engines to remember how many there were, fighting to grab our attention, to offer a different experience than the other, but I bet you’d be hard pushed to remember many of them now (all geeks excluded).

In the end the same will happen to the various forms of web 2.0. They will all fight and either buy or wipe each others services out, until only a few remain. Who will be those remaining brands that we will trust, like we now trust all our search enquiries to Google or Yahoo? Only recently Facebook announced that it is going to offer a video service not unlike YouTube. And already we are forgetting the many social sites that have come and gone in the first wave of casualties in this war.

I for one find this battle exciting times for the growth of ‘Social Media’. It’s like a space race and we all know the best ideas are born in competition. While all the other services get more clever and complex, combining with other sites and claiming to offer the user a more exciting experience, Twitter has only to sharpen what they are already doing, being the link to the best of what we like in the services being provided.

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Tweeting B2B

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Posted 19 Mar 2009 — by admin
Category Branding, Technology, social networking
EO Tweeting

EO Tweeting

Probably like a lot of people I started social networking with BEBO until the mighty Facebook caught my attention and it was clear that BEBO was a child’s toy in comparison.

Last year I was introduced to Linkedin which is powerful business networking site, though I found it very restrictive after being familiar with Facebook. However it had advantages of reaching the people you wanted to have in your network, you could say more quality over quantity. I suppose we at EO Creative have enjoy since conception marketing tool of social networking, but Linkedin appeared the only real option for B2B networking.

Then I started exploring Twitter and like many others, first viewed Twitter as a fairly useless marketing tool in the business to business marketing box. How could a few words telling people what you are ‘doing now’ help grow your brand or build your reputation? But, I have to eat my words, I was wrong. As many of you who know us, we are not likely to sit by the sideline, instead we dived into the Twitter pool a little while back and swam with the Tweeters. And now we are converts to the marketing potential for B2B through the Twitter platform. There is a lot to be gained from twittering and much for business marketing.

Feel free to follow our tweets on Twitter and see what we mean at http://twitter.com/EO_Creative

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Forthcoming Business Eye Article

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Posted 30 Jul 2008 — by admin
Category News, Technology

Derek Hall

 

Not often do we get a chance to blog with reference to published news stories about our own company, but we wanted to share with you our clients and friends this news story. In the forthcoming edition of Business Eye Magazine we at EO Creative have been featured regarding our use of technology to assist us in collaboration, business economics and overall efficiency.

The featured article asked us to discuss our unique method of working practices and the types of software and hardware that assists us in achieving a better work/life balance. As you have read before at ‘Left over GREY MATTER’, we value our time with clients, but we also place a great deal of value upon being apart of the world outside the studio and time spent with our families.

If you do fancy checking out the article, it is in the August issue and should be somewhere in the technology section. Thanks to Business Eye and Matthew Scott at EG Consulting, for this opportunity to discuss our part in this new wave of original thinking for working environments. It was a pleasure to share our insights and hopefully other companies might find it an interesting solution to their own working practices.

If you would like to discover further how we work, or feel that our advice or services might just be what your looking for to assist your company in communicating better. Feel free to drop me an email at the usual address, I would only be too happy to work with you and your company.

Derek

www.eo-creative.com

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Collabortation and technology

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Posted 25 Jul 2008 — by admin
Category Marketing, Technology

Part of our ethos at EO Creative is that it is possible to remain small through collaboration & technology. From day one we wanted to work in an agency that is apposed to the general thinking of the larger agencies, who have lost sight of the design principles and the craft that attracted designers to the industry. In our experience larger agencies are caught up in endless meetings, Powerpoint presentations, less client interaction, demanding work hours and are completely at odds with the work/life balance; which we all know is important for health and mental well being. From the outset at EO knew that there was a need for change within the industry, and we needed to be different to be apart of that required change.

At EO Creative we always wanted to be an agency that continued to be imaginative and passionate about design, but uses technology to reduce overheads, increase communication and explores a better work/home lifestyle, alongside delivering innovative thinking. So our company began with the idea of having a small company made up of a few partners and collaborating with other creatives on particular projects, with each person having their own role to play as their skills sets demand. This is not a new idea of design and creative clustering, but it is the first in Northern Ireland to actually work. It is not unlike how other industries work, bringing in a particular talent as and when required, rather than using people who claim to be a jack of all trades. However not having all staff in the same building originally did pose a a concern over communication and deliverables, but that is were technology has provided the solution and created an innovative way of working.

With an ethos highlighting the importantance of all involved have the freedom to be creative and maintain good healthy relationships with family and friends. We encourage mobility and getting outside the studio, basically being apart of the world we aim to assist in communicating better. Therefore we use tools like the iPhone, not only to receive phone calls, emails and use as a diary. The iPhone with its varied applications is much more, it permits instant communication with the main principles in the company. With ever developing array of new apps like Zenbe allow the creation of job lists that creative staff and managers can interact with in a real time bases, ticking off work when completed and adding new items the moment they occur. With the new Mobile.Me service from Apple all contacts and calendars are synced at the same time when any change is made on any computer or iPhone. This creates much better access to information for all involved and prevents data being out of date or not shared. Also the Mobile.Me service is useful for presenting work if we are working with a client who would like to see progress on their job immediately or is based quite a distance away.

Another technology that has revolutionised the way we communicate and has made working outside the UK much easier and economically viable, is applications like Tweetie, Birdhouse, Skype or iChat. Particularly these voice over protocol tools have been available for sometime, but rarely has a company embraced such technology with zest. We only need access to an broadband connection and can speak with each other or clients from anywhere in the world. Often meetings, or briefing of creatives are done using these tools, sending documents, remote control of desk tops or being able to see a friendly face from the other side of the world. Collaboration plays a large role in our company, usually we work with people we have worked with before. Look for individuals that embrace innovation, that have a unique voice, style and approach that makes you look forward to every new piece of work. Whether that be motion graphics, illustrations or design.

Very few Northern Ireland companies blog, and even less creative agencies use this modern method of communication. We love blogging and wanted our blog “Left Over Grey Matter’ not only to communicate regular news updates, but also provide useful content for those not familiar with the design industry. When away from the computer we can still update our blog from our iPhones using ShoZu and Wordpress, and with Facebook’s app we update our Facebook profile. Blogging and sites like VIRB, Facebook, Flickr and YouTube are excellent platforms for showcasing new pieces of work, and contributing to the online interaction between clients and creatives. We think it is important that clients are involved throughout the design process and that their location is not a restriction and Twitter has been a real asset in this area. It is safe to say that through the use of available technologies working with clients or with each other is like being in the same room. Staying small and keeping things in proportion has helped us to maintain an eclectic mix of clients from huge companies to one-man-bands, who challenge us in different ways.

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